


Buttercup

by orphan_account



Category: EastEnders
Genre: Happily Ever After, Happily Ever After series, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-20
Updated: 2013-03-20
Packaged: 2017-12-05 22:05:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/728399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Syed and Christian go for a walk with their family and have a picnic. There's a canal and sunshine and flowers. That's literally it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Buttercup

They walked along the canal, hand in hand. A summer day, dappled sunlight on water, green trees and warm flowers. Palm against palm they walked the dirt track by the old calm waters. A river boat drifted along. Out of town, away from the station up into the countryside, picnic basket in hand.

Yasmin was running ahead, a football tucked under one arm. Mika'il stayed close by his parents, nervous, less confident, missing his Mum. Syed ruffled his head with his free hand and spoke an encouraging work. Mika'il kept stopping to look at things and scuffing his toe and turning it in the dust of the track before running to catch up and then being distracted again. 

Christian smiled, memories of the night before fresh in his mind as he looked at his husband. It was a warm summer day. Blue sky and white clouds. Trees and waterside plants of every description filled the banks and the hedgerows. Hawthorns, ashes, willows and rushes. The last of the mayflowers were hanging on in the hedgerows, the tender leaves of the tall ashes and willows and birch spread over the waterway. At their feet tall grasses and ox-eye daisies mixed with the sporadic overgrown hedgerows running along side the shaded canal and everywhere little blobs of warm sunlight dripped through the canopy leaving warm tingles dancing over the skin as the leaves and the cool breeze played with each other in the hot summer sun. 

Along the far side a horse was being walked on a rein. Mika'il stopped and pointed. Christian acknowledged the horse with enthusiasm to Mika'il and a squeeze of Syed's hand. He still fell to pieces any time either of their children so much as spoke. Did something. Noticed the world.

Up ahead Yasmin was running. “Yasmin, don't run too far!” Syed shouted.

Yasmin turned around and ran back towards them. Syed watched her, leaned into Christian. Felt Christian lean into him. Bodies closer together. Fingers curling. Hearts twining. Yasmin speeded towards them and thudded into Christian's soft belly with a loud giggle at the 'ooph' it produced from her long-suffering Daddy. She gave him a hug and a 'love you' and then headed back out again, full of energy. Growing legs eating up ground. Mikky at just three was more tentative, taking in the big world. He bent his knees down and picked a flower. Stared at it. Twirled it in his hands. Held it up to Syed. 

Birdsong filling the air. 

Syed took the flower and Mika'il fell in at his heel, as close as he could get without being picked up. He was tired, poor thing. Shabnam had left for Pakistan yesterday and he'd exhausted himself with his crying. It was an ox-eye daisy and Syed accepted it graciously with a kind word to his son.

When they reached the end of the trees the path continued on along the canal side into open meadow. An old wooden fence stood bare between posts where the hedgerow and flowers and curtained vegetation fell away to reveal buttercup meadows with clover and bees and bright sunlight. Across the other bank some brown jersey cows chewed the cud on sprawling pasture that stretched away either side where the trees fell away to open farmland and by the patch where they stopped an old wooden style straddled the fence.

Christian twisted round and kissed Syed, warm wet lips and tongues joining and then parting. Enough to say without words what Syed understood, with other people milling around along the canal and the tow path. At least this far away from the car park and the pub by the lock it seemed that things were a bit quieter. “Love you. This'll do.”

“Not so fast,” Syed retorted.

Christian stepped away with a smile and their hand slid apart but Syed stepped in behind him and wound his arms round his husband's waist, a chin on his shoulder.

“Uphold you always and honour you...”

Syed felt Mik'ail latch on to his leg. Yasmin's footsteps sounded towards them. Syed pulled back.

“Is it lunchtime yet?” Yasmin asked eagerly and with barely a blink she had sprung over the style to the other side.

“Wait Yas!” Christian shouted but she was already off. “Maybe we should ask someone?”

Syed reached down, unplucked a pudgy arm from around his thigh and scooped Mika'il up by the arms, settling him on his hip. “Your son and I are hungry and if that sun gets any hotter that lot will spoil before we've even eaten it.”

“Sy...” Christian looked sideways at Syed, his eyes seemed to get lost in his lover's tearful gaze. Love and tenderness and a lifetime of feelings. A tender knuckle reached up and grazed Syed's chest. “I...”

It was something Syed did, sometimes. Said their vows, or bits of them, because he could. Because Christian had chosen him. Because Christian had come back and given him that chance and because he needed Christian to know every day for the rest of their lives that he had made the right choice. That they were soul mates, tied together. Inextricably entwined by their hearts and their life forces and some other unfathomable binds. Christian was his other half and he was Christian's. To live without him would be to live a half life of loss and emptiness and monotone grey. This, living in love, was truly living. It was blessed and it always floored Christian. It made his shoulders sag and his eyes go wide and his mouth go quiet and soft and he'd touch Syed with such reverence, such tenderness that it nearly broke Syed's heart to think he'd ever betrayed that. 

Syed took the hand and kissed it. “One patch of grass is as good as another. Yasmin can kick a ball around, Mikky can pick flowers and you and I can lie in the sun and snuggle.”

“Ok,” Christian smiled and with one easy step he was up and over the style. Syed followed with a tired Mika'il following Syed's every step with his droopy eyes. Christian glanced at Syed and then cast an eye over the field finding their daughter. “Yasmin! Sun cream!”

“Awww! But Daaaaad!”

“And you can help me get this mat out while you're at it.” Christian put down the hamper and began unloading things, throwing a tube of sun cream to one side and digging out the blanket to sit on.

“And then can I play football?”

“Wouldn't you rather eat something first?”

“I'd rather play football,” Yasmin harumphed. “You and Dad are just going to spend the whole time making out anyway.”

“Since when?”

“Since forever,” Yasmin rolled her eyes.

Christian grabbed her and squeezed her. “You're probably right. Come on then, Twinkle.”

“You don't have to _agree_ with her Christian,” Syed suggested, feeling slightly put out at the accuracy of their daughter's statement. So they might enjoy the afternoon. What was a bit of mild kissing? Wasn't like they were going to strip naked and have sex!

Yasmin helped Christian lay out the blanket in a dry patch of buttercup meadow with a view up and down the canal and over to the brown cows. Yasmin waved at her brother who blinked sleepily back. “He's tired,” She observed to Syed, sliding in to the role of big sister.

“Yeah, he misses his Mum,” Syed explained lowering him down to the ground onto the mat that was there. 

The hamper was being unpacked. Sandwiches and leftovers and fresh and dried fruits.

Mika'il tottered towards Yasmin who opened her arms and gave him a big hug and a sloppy big sister kiss. Mika'il poked his sister in protest and swiped at the slobber on his face.

Yamin grinned happily. She loved her little brother and sat down next to him, discarding the football in favour of the promised sandwiches and time with her family.

“Thought you weren't hungry,” Christian observed.

Yasmin shrugged. “Changed my mind,” She looked at her other father, “Did you make ham?”

Syed rolled his eyes. “I'll let your Dad field that one.”

“Ham for you and me,” Christian began handing out triangles. Mika'il reached one but Christian swerved it out of his way. “Chicken for Mikky and Sy.”

“I want some,” Mika'il pouted.

“Do you see what you've started?” Syed bit at Yasmin.

“Sy...” Christian tried to calm him.

“You know you'll have to wash as soon as you get home,” Syed told his daughter. Somehow she'd gotten a taste for ham at school and no amount of telling her it was forbidden or unhygenic had yet managed to dissuade her from joining in eating one of Christian's favourite sandwich fillings.

Yasmin took a bite of her sandwich and lifted her chin, “Fine.”

“But I want...” Mika'il started.

“Here,” Syed handed a chicken sandwich to Mika'il. He threw it away. Yasmin tore off a bit of her sandwich and held it out to her brother who grasped onto it and stuffed it into his mouth happily.

“Christian!” Syed stretched a hand out, imploring his husband to intervene. “A little help?”

“Sy, I'm not about to start...look we always said we'd let them make up their own minds.”

Syed felt both his children stare at him, waiting. He looked round his family, happily gorging themselves on ham sandwiches and despaired. “If you so much as kiss me without brushing your teeth,” He pointed at his husband.

Christian leaned over and pecked him leaving crumbs on Syed's cheek. “I pledged to live my life openly and honestly with you and I'm being honest with you Sy...I like ham and so do the kids.”

“Urgh!”

“They still say their prayers, they still go to mosque...”

“Its completely haraam!”

“So is our love life,” Christian deadpanned, handing a happy Mika'il a triangle of ham and white bread. Yasmin dived in and Christian went for a third.

Syed sighed and gave in. Just like that, as with so many other things, he compromised. It wasn't like any of Yasmin's parents had been taking pains to teach her to avert he eyes around men or cover her arms either, preferring the happy and confident child they had than one who was constantly being told things were 'wrong'. Syed had made that mistake for himself and he'd learned his lesson. He wasn't about to pass the same complex on. So they weren't the most orthodox Muslim family around. Like that was anything new.

 

Later after sandwiches and fruit and juice Yasmin ran off into the meadow with her football while her parents lay back in the grass. Christian lay on his back with one hand tucked under his head staring up at the clouds. Syed lay at an angle, head on Christian's chest with a sleepy Mika'il tucked into his side. Mika'il soon curled up, stuck his thumb in his mouth and went to sleep against Syed. Syed stroked his back and sighed against his husband.

“That him?” Christian queried.

“Out like a light.”

They stared at the sky and the sun nourished them and white butterflies flew between them and the clouds. One of Christian's hands trailed over Syed's shoulder to link with Syed's hand over the younger man's heart.

“I promise to cherish you and tenderly care for you,” Christian whispered.

“Hmm?”

“Nothing,” Christian smiled to himself. To think he'd almost thrown all this away because Syed sucked another man's cock way back when, lucky bastard.

“You know, I never had a best friend before you,” Syed announced. “You had James...”

“James don't know me like you know me,” Christian stated.

They fell into easy silence. The silence of known breathing and circling thumbs and restfulness. The silence of knowing and being known and sadness and joy and everything altogether complete. Everything worth knowing. Everything about each other.

“You grew up together,” Syed argued.

“We spent our childhood together,” Christian corrected. “I grew up when I met you.”

“Do you think he'll be happy? With Leyton?”

Christian stroked Syed's hair back from his brow, enjoying the feel of the locks in his fingers. “I hope so. Guess we'll find out at the wedding. Sy...” Syed's heart nearly froze every time Christian's voice sounded with that particular tone, with the deep-seated insecurity that mirrored Syed's own buttoned down feelings of inadequacy. Both fears were kept shuttered, both dragged out into the daylight at safe intimate moments to examine and belittle and shrink them back into place.

“I love you, Clarkie,” Syed said firmly.

“Sy...do I really make you happy?”

“You know you do. You and our family,” Syed's free hand stroked their son's back. His eyes drifted off towards their daughter practicing keepy-uppy by herself a short distance away. “Sprog One and Sprog Two.”

Christian looked at his husband and at their children and out at the world. “Yeah,” He agreed at length. “Guess we did alright.”

Buttercup meadow and clover stretched as far as the eye could see. Cows grazed. The sun warmed. Trees bloomed into fountains of luscious green and little white wisps of cloud floated through a deep moroccan blue sky. Syed's eyes drifted closed in the warm afternoon sun. He shifted against Christian and smiled. A Mona Lisa smile.


End file.
